Telegraph: Twitter lifts restrictions on Russian top government accounts

The Telegraph reported that Twitter has removed search restrictions on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official account, as well as Russia's Foreign Ministry, and Russian Embassy in London accounts.

Those Kremlin-linked accounts were restricted when Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February last year.

When imposing restrictions on the Russian government accounts last April, Twitter said it would not be recommended on the platform, meaning it became hard to discover them.

However, Kremlin-linked accounts are now featured in Twitter’s algorithm-driven “For You” feed for new users at the top of specific search results and show up in suggestions to follow, according to the Telegraph.

“It would be exceedingly unlikely that this change would have happened accidentally or without the knowledge and direction of the company's staff,” a former Twitter employee told the Telegraph.

Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion last October and has reversed many of the social network’s moderation efforts, “promoting free speech.”

Last week, Twitter eased restrictions on Russian and Chinese state-controlled media accounts, introduced in 2020.

Musk said on March 17 he would make public the algorithm for recommending tweets.

“Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31,” he tweeted.